This will be the first edition of a semi-regular effort to share with you my gleanings from teh interwebs, my favorite blogs and websites, you know, in case I’m not just shouting into a void….
I have been without my Macbook Pro (late 2008) for a week, but she’s back now and everything is alright. Well almost alright. Time Machine is handy, when it works right, and buggy as all getout if you just want to re-update iTunes from a backup copy that’s newer than the stupid version they put on in the store, because it will take TEN HOURS to re-download it from home… anyway, that’s neither here nor there concerning Nano (but the words still count!). My laptop is running and has new shiny parts on the inside and is taunting me to write something important.

I am back to using Scrivener for my writing, thank god, for the rest of Wrimo. I have enjoyed using the keyboard and iPhone setup, and will continue to do so when I’m out and about or at work. But the usefulness of Simplenote syncing doesn’t makeup for the organization of Scrivener (or the minor bugs on the iPhone with a bluetooth keyboard; I’m looking at you Facebook App). I need organization when I write because I am so disorganized myself. In any case, I have mentioned Scrivener before and will do so again. It’s a brilliant program that does everything you’ve ever seen another word processor or text editor do but like ten times better easier, and with automatic saving every three seconds. If you are a computer user that writes words, you need this program.

Originally just for the Mac, they have released a beta Windows version recently, that has been getting great reviews too. Check out what people are saying over at their blog, Called Literature and Latte, many published writers are fans and users, and it has become very popular in the last few years with Nano participants, they even offer a month long trial (for Nano) and a discount if you get to fifty thousand words.

I’m a Mac person, there I’ve said it. Overly controlling practices and monopolistic tendencies aside, they build a better computer than just about anyone out there. One of the programs that I use all the time, truly one of the best designed word processing programs that I have ever seen is only available for Macs, and it’s called Scrivener, and if you’re not familiar with it yet, CHECK IT OUT, you can try it free for 30 days of use. That’s not thirty consecutive days, now, that’s thirty days of using the program, have you even heard of a trial like that for another program!!? It is mainly designed for writing and organizing large projects,or novel writing. You can import just about anything, there’s even a context Service menu option for inserting clippings from other programs. It also integrates well with Writeroom, so you can take notes on the road and then easily import them into your project over an internet connection….